Scott Ainslie

Country blues singer and guitarist Scott Ainslie first picked up the instrument after witnessing a performance by John Jackson in 1967. Alongside that discovery he pursued structured studies, earning a B.A. in music theory and composition from Washington & Lee University in 1974. Throughout his professional life Ainslie balanced stage appearances with scholarly projects in music history, among them multiple teaching initiatives and the 1992 publication Robert Johnson/At the Crossroads. In the mid-1990s he contributed to two Tom Chapin releases, So Nice to Come Home and Join the Jubilee, while also issuing his own first solo recording, Jealous of the Moon, on Cattail Music in 1995. Subsequent solo albums arrived in steady succession: Terraplane in 1998, You Better Lie Down in 2002, The Feral Crow in 2005, and Thunder’s Mouth in 2008. During the opening years of the following decade Ainslie supplied original material to projects by Chapin as well as the duo Ross Kennedy & Archie McAllister and the artist Rod MacDonald.